If anyone can convince a visitor to taste something that smells like feet, it's Ken Love. The longtime Kona coffee farmer, president of Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers and vice president of the Kona Kohala Chefs Association has devoted his post-journalism career to finding not only exotic fruits that can thrive in the islands, but also ways to entice chefs and consumers to try them.

With the notoriously stinky durian, which smells the worst when it's best to eat, Love has served it fresh — the traditional way — to actor Bill Pullman, who was in town filming "The Fruit Hunters," an upcoming movie based on the 2008 book in which Love is a key character. But Love has also whipped up durian cakes and chips, "and as soon as the three in my garage are ripe, I'm going to make durian jam," he said in a recent phone interview. "I'll hope for the best — my wife is out of town."

Ken Love talks durian fruit.

Media: San Francisco Chronicle

By importing and cultivating exotic fruit in Hawaii, Love follows an ancient tradition. The remote islands were home to only a few berries and other edible plants when ancient Polynesian voyagers first arrived; they had to nurture coconut and banana seedlings, among other staples, in their long sailing canoes when they crossed the ocean to their new home.

Centuries passed before more varieties of fruit arrived: Pineapple, guava, papaya and mango were all post-Western contact introductions. Waves of immigrants from China, Japan and the Philippines also brought favored fruits from their homelands that took root in plantation cottage gardens and later suburban backyards.

But there was little commercial market for the more exotic fruits of Hawaii until the culinary trends of locally sourced menus and adventurous pan-Asian cuisine became intertwined with a movement by small farmers to diversify their crops and provide "food security" in a state heavily dependent on imports. Now Love and the Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers are helping tickle palates for "ultra-exotics" with a statewide series of free tastings and cooking demonstrations. Black Surinam cherry and jackfruit will be the stars of the next event, May 19 at the Whole Foods in Kahala Mall on Oahu, with preparations by chef Kevin Hanney of 12th Avenue Grill and SALT.

Ono Organic Farms in Hana, Maui, and botanical gardens across the islands also offer tours and information about these intriguing fruits. Still, farmers markets provide the most reliably fertile ground for finding and sampling exotic fruits. In Kona, the Saturday market at Keauhou Shopping Center, the smaller Sunday market in Captain Cook and the Wednesday market at Keauhou Beach Hotel all offer a selection of ultra-exotics, Love notes.

Such markets "increase the marketability of fruit that nobody would even bother to pick 15 years ago, like surinam cherry, or tree tomatoes, or Kona limes," says Love. "Then the word started spreading when people who live here started going to fancy meals at resorts for a special occasion, like a birthday, and they'd try something like tree tomato ice cream, "They would say, 'I have those growing in my backyard!'

"Now we've gotten to this next step, where we have a decent quantity and chefs are using it, and we can see what we have left to market to consumers directly."

With a veritable cornucopia of exotic fruits to explore, I asked Love to share his tasting notes for just 10 of them, presented in alphabetical order with a representative species name; feel free to share your favorites in the comments field. (For recipes and more information, visit the HTFG Web site.)

Abiu (Pouteria caimito)

Originally from the Amazon, and also grown commercially in Australia, this baseball-sized yellow fruit tastes "like vanilla pudding," says Love, and has also been described as a gel blend of melon and persimmon. But tryers beware: You do need to remove the skin first. "It has this latex in it that is s really sticky and not pleasant," Love notes. His favorite dish with it so far: abiu ice cream made by the former chef at Monette's at the Mauna Kea Resort, which was "just incredible."

Black Surinam cherry(Eugenia uniflora)

As the name suggests, the large shrub that produces this fruit originates in South America's northeastern regions. It's also known locally as the "pumpkin cherry," due to its crenellated shape, and is related to guava and mountain apple. "This is a lot different than the red Surinam cherry. If people tried the red one and went 'ewww' because it's kind of resinous, try the black one: It's much sweeter and not as resinous," advises Love. "It makes incredible curries. One chef mixes it with molasses and makes ice cubes and puts it in cocktails."

Breadfruit(Artocarpus altilis)

One of the original canoe plants, and still central to other Polynesian cuisines, the ‘ulu, or breadfruit, unfortunately dwindled in the Hawaiian Islands to the point it seems exotic now — at least on menus visitors might encounter. But the tide is turning, Love says. "It's an incredibly versatile fruit, and thanks to the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai, who are really spearheading this, we're having cooking contests and festivals."

Locals from Guam and Micronesia will "just throw it on the grill or in an imu, while Samoans will cut it up, boil it with coconut and sugar and serve it as a dessert, and Hawaiians would wait until it got soft and then make ‘ulu poi," Love explains. While he likes to make‘ulu veggie burgers with the starchy pulp, his wife makes breadfruit bread using banana bread recipes. Another tip: "Add curry powder to the pulp, put it in a ramekin with a piece of black cod or whatever fish you like inside, cover it with more pulp and bake. It puffs up to make it en croûte," Love says with a sigh of a delight.

Durian(Durio zibethinus)

A native of Southeast Asia, this spiny fruit with the custard-like interior is renowned for its singularly repellent odor, described alternately as smelly feet, pungent cheese and onions and "a Dumpster full of rotting fruit" — and those are just the polite phrases. Anthony Bourdain is quoted as saying it leaves your breath "as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother." This one might seem a hard sell even for Love, but he was delighted to find three jam recipes in the Philippines recently to give it a whirl.

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus)

The largest fruit from any tree — up to 100 pounds — came from the East Indies to Hawaii. "People will taste jackfruit and say 'banana-papaya,' which I don't get at all, but if it works for you, great," say Love, who dries the fruit into jackfruit jerky. "When people want to know what it tastes like, I say, 'Remember when food was made with real food, like back in the '50s? That's when Juicy Fruit gum was made with jackfruit. They taste it and then say, 'Oh yes, Juicy Fruit!' "

Love also grinds the seeds into flour for tempura. "It's sweeter and doesn't adhere quite as well as other flours would, so I use vegetables that react differently, like cutting Brussels sprouts in half or fanning out leeks. The tempura is delicious — my wife who can't stand jackfruit loves it."

Japoticaba(Myrciaria cauliflora)

This reporter first encountered this Brazilian native as a kind of dark purple jelly in the gift shop at Lyon Arboretum in Manoa. The clerk couldn't tell me what it tasted like, other than "japoticaba," but after purchasing it, I'd say sweet plum and cherry. "I have a giant stewpot filled with japoticaba in my kitchen that I've been trying to process for the last three hours," notes Love, who began selling it at a farmers market he had helped start in South Kona in the early '90s. "There was a tour bus full of Russians that stopped, and I'll never forget their expression when they tried it for the first time. They just thought it was incredible."

Lemon drop mangosteen(Garcinia intermedia)

Often called mameyito in its homeland of southern Mexico and Central America, this variety is actually a "very distant cousin of mangosteen," says Love. "It's part of this whole garcinia family, but when Oscar (Jaitt) from Fruit Lovers Nursery in Pahoa started calling it lemon drop mangosteen, it just stuck. "I actually prefer it to mangosteen. It's a sweet-tart thing; it's not sandy like SweeTarts candy, but you get that sense of lemon flavor."

Lychee(Litchi chinensis)

Although this ancient fruit of China was first documented in Hawaii in 1873, Love believes it probably came earlier in the 1840s, along with the loquat, brought by southern Chinese immigrants. While many visitors would be familiar with its slippery, rubbery pear taste, from the canned versions often found in restaurants and grocery stores, they may not know the superior taste of one peeled and eaten fresh from a local tree. "It costs us just under $2 a pound to produce lychee, but you can buy them from Mexico and Thailand landed in Honolulu for 75 cents," Love observes. "How do we compete? Just on quality."

Tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea)

This Andean fruit, nicknamed the tree tomato, tastes "kind of like a spicy tomato," Love says. "Chefs love it. You give it to one group and they all make desserts with it; you give it to another, and they make curries, and reductions and savory dishes. One of our kids who sells it at the (Keauhou) farmers market made a chutney from a New Zealand recipe that's delicious."

White sapote (Casimiroa edulis)

Native to central Mexico, the white sapote inspires a variety of favorable comparisons, including a lemon-banana-melon smoothie, "but I'm always having trouble having chefs or consumers get into it," Love laments, noting, "Once it ripens it's extremely fragile." One of his favorite white sapote recipes came from Pullman, whom he visited at home in Los Angeles while working on the film adaptation of Adam Gollner's "The Fruit Hunters." The movie is due to debut at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

"I was staying at (Pullman's) house and he's a fruit crazed person too," Love recalls. "He jumps up and says, 'You have to try this, and he pulls out a Champion juicer and a bunch of frozen white sapote, and mixes in almonds and honey, and it was great."

Jeanne Cooper is the former Chronicle Travel Editor and author of SFGate's Hawaii Insider, a daily blog about Hawaii travel and island culture.